by Matthew Russell Lee, Patreon Book Substack
SDNY COURTHOUSE, Nov 14 - For the UN's role in Hamas' October 7 attacks, non-US citizen plaintiffs and estates on June 24 filed a lawsuit in the U.S. District Court for the Southern District of New York against UNRWA, Philippe Lazzarini, Pierre Krahenbuhl, Filippo Grandi, Leni Stenseth, Sandra Mitchel, Margot Ellis and Greta Gunnarsdottir.
The individual plaintiffs are sued for, inter alia, their "constant travel to New York" to raise and get money and "their material support of Hamas' terror infrastructure." Also cited, for jurisdiction and venue, is "over one billion dollars from UNRWA's New York bank account in Manhattan that Defendants then caused to be delivered to Gaza in cash U.S. dollars to benefit Hamas."
Inner City Press, which daily cover the SDNY court in-person and the UN from outside the gate, banned from entry by SG Antonio Guterres, asked Guterres' spokespeople Stephane Dujarric and Melissa Fleming about the lawsuit, without any response per usual.
Nor have they responded to Inner City Press' June 19 application to enter the UN to ask these questions.
On July 30, the US State Department - at the request of the UN - filed a letter asserting complete impunity: "At the request of the United Nations and in accordance with the United States’ treaty obligations to respect the immunities of the United Nations and its officials, we explain the application of those immunities in this case.
On November 14, after the election, UNRWA used public money to hire Curtis, Mallet-Provest to file "Defendants file this letter to assert their immunity from suit and to respectfully request that the Court dismiss this action. Defendants are all entitled to immunity from the jurisdiction of U.S. courts absent an express waiver of such immunity. There has been no such express waiver of immunity by the Secretary-General of the United Nations of any Defendant" - full letter coming.
The UNRWA case is ESTATE OF TAMAR KEDEM SIMAN TOV, BY HEIR-AT-LAW GAD KEDEM v. UNITED NATIONS RELIEF AND WORKS AGENCY (UNRWA) et al., 24-cv-04765 (Torres)
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